rydawg5;983383 wrote:The problem is, I'm a fuckin Republican. I don't give a shit about Occupy anything. But this is fucking sickening.

I Wear Pants;983392 wrote:A+, you can think the Occupy people are dirty hippies if you want, but there is something wrong with at the very least this latest case.

I Wear Pants;983380 wrote:http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2011/11/a_minimum_wage_job_no_longer_c.html

What happened was that two tablespoons of tomato paste was considered a serving of vegetables, and therefore, school pizza qualified. New regulations were introduced requiring pizza to have a quarter cup of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable, making companies like ConAgra step up their health game a little.
ConAgra was pissed that this would cut into their profits, so last week, they lobbied congress to keep the old regulation that two tablespoons qualify as a vegetable. The old pizza is sufficient to qualify as a serving of vegetables, according to the US Congress. Congress kept the existing regulation, reclassifying pizza as a vegetable.
See, the reason this is offensive and that you should be outraged by it is because nutritionists and scientists guided public policy to improve health and nutrition in children. ConAgra came in and spent a bunch of money, and erased the work that science has done.
This is everything that's wrong with corporate government. We've thrown out logic and reason and science, and we've embraced greed and corporatism and cash money.
It's fucking KILLING children to be this obese, and yet congress doesn't care. They'd rather classify pizza as a vegetable to fit the guidelines in order to take all that ConAgra campaign money than do what's best, what's right for American children.
And they're being mocked...MOCKED for it. As well they should be. Pizza is NOT a fucking vegetable. It's NOT healthy. In some schools you can get pizza and french fries EVERY DAY for lunch, and the people who are working against that are being silenced by corporate money.
This is the very idea behind OWS.
Do you understand now how repugnant this is? Do you understand why it can't go away?

I Wear Pants;983396 wrote:On the whole pizza being a vegetable thing:

majorspark;983394 wrote:Simple just raise the minimum wage. Problem solved.

majorspark;983398 wrote:Simple. Let the locals decide what they want to feed their children and ConAgra would have to convice 10s of thousands of local school districts to buy their shit. The federal congress should have no say. Problem solved.

I Wear Pants;983402 wrote:Maybe so, but the real problem here is, again, lobbying. We're literally allowing who pays the most to talk about shit decide our policy instead of, in this case nutritionists and facts. It's absurd.

I Wear Pants;983401 wrote:Not true. Not saying I'm against raising it but I think there are other problems besides that which are causing it.

It was not so long ago that Texas governor Bush denounced attempts to cut the earned-income tax credit as “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.” By 2011, Republican commentators were noisily complaining that the poorer half of society are “lucky duckies” because the EITC offsets their federal tax obligations—or because the recession had left them with such meager incomes that they had no tax to pay in the first place.
In 2000, candidate Bush routinely invoked “churches, synagogues, and mosques.” By 2010, prominent Republicans were denouncing the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan as an outrageous insult.
In 2003, President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress enacted a new *prescription-drug program in Medicare. By 2011, all but four Republicans in the House and five in the Senate were voting to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from everybody under age 55.
Today, the Fed’s pushing down interest rates in hopes of igniting economic growth is close to treason, according to Governor Rick Perry, coyly seconded by TheWall Street Journal. In 2000, the same policy qualified Alan Greenspan as the “greatest central banker in the history of the world,” according to Perry’s mentor, Senator Phil Gramm.
Today, health reform that combines regulation of private insurance, individual mandates, and subsidies for those who need them is considered unconstitutional and an open invitation to “death panels.” A dozen years ago, a very similar reform was the Senate Republican alternative to Hillarycare.
Today, stimulative fiscal policy that includes tax cuts for almost every American is “socialism.” In 2001, stimulative fiscal policy that included tax cuts for rather fewer Americans was an economic*-recovery program.

[LEFT]
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/republican-david-frum-the-gop-has-completely-lost-touch-with-reality-2011-11#ixzz1ePXoIhQM

I Wear Pants;983402 wrote:Maybe so, but the real problem here is, again, lobbying. We're literally allowing who pays the most to talk about shit decide our policy instead of, in this case nutritionists and facts. It's absurd.

majorspark;983415 wrote:The real problem is political power and the concentration of it on one place. You can't outlaw people and organizations of people from being able to lobby and redress their grievances to their representatives. The problem you have here is an increasing Federal monopoly of political power. As with any monopoly you break it up and the resulting competing interests solves the problem.

In no way shape or form should the central government in Washington have any say what kids are fed at their local school district. I am struggling to find this one in the constitution. When you create an unconstitutional department of the federal government like the department of education this is the kind of shit you end up with. Your solution is more federal government controls and regualtions to correct the results of an out of control federal government operating in this case outside the constitution. Creating an even bigger more powerful monopoly of power.

I Wear Pants;983417 wrote:Disagree, at least we can the current way.

I Wear Pants;983417 wrote:It literally works like this:

Have money:Get bill.

That's not right.

I Wear Pants;983422 wrote:Lol, and then you simply buy the bill there. Not a solution at all.

majorspark;983426 wrote:What? At best you buy off some local school districts. Or maybe a state or two. At least the rest of us can tell you to where to put your shitty pizza.

Corruption is the problem. It will alway exist at all levels of governence. Corruption at the federal level affects us all. Divide and conquer I say.

sleeper;983408 wrote:Liberals want better health for our students but want someone else to pay for it.

I Wear Pants;983428 wrote:I don't think "dividing and conquering" will work anymore. Shit's too big for them to let that work.

gut;983435 wrote:I said it before and I'll say it again, the whole class warfare thing is a sham. Tell everyone we'll confiscate 100% of the annual income from the 1% and also balance the budget and no one is going to be happy when the govt hands them a BALANCE DUE on the remainder.

Automatik;983075 wrote:You zip tie them and haul them off and let whatever punishment come to them. Pepper spray is considered assault, they did not need to be assaulted.

Automatik;983158 wrote:And IMO it was not justifiable. I'm sure it was"orders from above", but heads will roll because of this. In the wakeof the OWS protests as a whole and the incident last week, the actions by these cops were simply put.....retarded.

I've seen hostile students get cuffed and stuffed on numerous occasions in much worse situations than that one.

I Wear Pants;983172 wrote:The police are not the deciding factor or judge either.

I Wear Pants;983178 wrote:OMG! The police might have to do something!

The people in this case were not violent, were not shouting, were not evenstanding. Also, the officer was able to walk behind them before assaulting themand even touch them and nothing violent happened. They could easily have ziptied or handcuffed these people and arrested them if they were breaking a lawor court order. Instead they decided to be the judge and jury and dole out thepunitive measures themselves. We cannot have the police enacting punishments.That is unacceptable and leads to a place where we do not wish to go.

That cop and precinct is going to burn in the media, in the public, and in thecourt's eyes (I use burn proverbially, no one should actually burn anyone oranything because of this. Fucking insane that I think I even need to add thatdisclaimer here) and they should. That sort of thing is not at all what we putour money, faith, and trust into the police system for.

gut;983327 wrote:Precisely, and that's why the policy in such a situation(large group locking arms) is critical. Nor is criticizing that policy choiceeasy - policies do sometimes need to be improved, but generally have evolvedand continue to do so. I'm not saying it's the correct choice, but it's notunreasonable to think the use of pepper spray in this situation (as opposed toexerting physical force to break locked arms) isn't the safest course of actionfor both police and protestor.

I Wear Pants;983357 wrote:No not the number. Something wrong with the"just do what you're told" line of thinking.

The escalation from "asking nicely" goes to arresting people, notassaulting them.

I Wear Pants;983358 wrote:No, I'm criticizing it because it's illegal.

The #1 concern of me is for citizens.